Has anyone had any luck with eliminating certain foods from their diet? I tried an elimination diet and also had a food intolerance test done with no positive results to speak of. Every doctor I've seen on the subject is selling some book or supplement and I've never met anyone in real life who has had success with this treatment. I was also diagnosed with "leaky gut" and "Adrenal fatigue" which I now believe to be quackery. But out of sheer desperation, I've begun to consider trying the elimination diet one more time. Can anyone share their experiences with Leaky gut and food intolerance? Thank you!

By the way, here is a list of symptoms that I have.

Depression
ADD
Insomnia
Sleep Apnea
My body fat is slightly high but isn't affected by diet or exercise at all
Anger
Chronic Sinusitis

How are you doing the elimination and challenge diet and what foods are you eliminating? There is a certain way to properly do the diet to find food intolerances. The symptoms you have can most definitely be from a food intolerance. If you haven't already, try completely eliminating all gluten, dairy, soy, corn, eggs, and sugar from your diet for 4-6 weeks and keep a journal of your symptoms. After the 4-6 weeks, reintroduce the eliminated foods ONE AT A TIME! This is the most crucial part! Pick one food and eat 2 servings of it on the first reintroduction day. If symptoms come up, stop eating the food until they go away. Try introducing the food again. If symptoms appear again, eliminate it from your diet for 6 months. If after 3 days a reintroduced food causes no symptoms, you can continue eating it and reintroduce the next food. Yes, it takes 3 days to reintroduce 1 food! I know it's time consuming but it's worth it.

Also, I don't know what your digestive complaints are, but l-glutamine is a really good supplement that helps heal the gut of inflammation caused by food intolerances. Probiotics are another really important supplement to support the digestive tract.

I did a hypo allergenic diet that an Alternative medicine doctor put me on. All of the foods that you mentioned were eliminated and I had no results. I introduced foods back into my diet but since nothing changed in the first place, I didn't notice a difference. I then had the test done and eliminated those foods instead which also was a waste of time.
As far as leaky gut goes, I have no digestive problems at all. As far as the research I've done goes and what my doctor told me, leaky gut can cause inflammatory responses in the brain without causing noticeable digestive problems. I have tried the supplements that you have mentioned above-again, with no results.
As you can imagine, this has been a huge disappointment for me. I thought for a short time that I was going to be given my life back and now I question whether these methods are just a scam or not. I figured if someone on here would have a success story that seemed legit enough, it would give me the motivation to try it again. I'm just very desperate at this point because my depression and anger is getting out of hand.

What is pretty clear is that people who have celiac disease develop other food intolerances. I'm not sure to what extent food intolerances happen without celiac disease, other than non-immune reactions like lactose intolerance.

"Leaky gut" is real. Scientists call it heightened "intestinal permeability". High intestinal permeability goes along with a lot of different conditions, like celiac disease and some other autoimmune diseases. But some of the testing for it may be dubious.
I was helped enormously by quitting foods. I think I have celiac disease. Y

Food sensitivities aren't necessarily what's bothering you. But elimination diets can also easily fail. I did one in 1997 and had no reactions to reintroducing foods. But that elimination diet wasn't gluten free (!!!) and I wasn't able to quit fructose on it, and that is made from corn - so it didn't work.

Last edited by moderator2; 12-10-2010 at 02:53 PM.
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